Lear Versus Edmund

In class today, discussing the different ideas of King Lear, we covered the topic of Edmund and Lear being contrasting characters.  They appear to be polar opposites in attitudes.  Although if you look closely their contrasts actually make them related to one another.  These two main characters mirror each other in their rise and fall from power and glory.  It is almost like an inversely related pair of variables in an equation: as Lear comes down, Edmund goes up, and as Lear goes back up, Edmund has to come back down.  An interesting side note to this relation between the characters is that Edmund and Lear never talk or meet throughout the play.  

What makes these two characters at such odds with each other?  Lear is a volatile, emotional man, willing to explode at any minute, at anyone, for any reason he deems worthy.  He proves that twice at the very beginning of the play by banishing both Cordelia and Kent (who happen to be the people who love him the most) and does so without any regard for the later repercussions.  Ready, fire, aim! appears to be Lear's fall back philosophy on how handle situations.  At the other end of the spectrum there is Edmund.  A man who is cold and calculating, controlling his emotions to the point where he doesn't even seem to have them.  Edmund never makes a rash choice, or a hasty decision.  He always methodically decides his next move so that he can make the most of the situation.  How do these characters who act and think completely opposite of each other have so much in common?  First, they are both very egotistical.   Second, both men are on a journey of discovery.  Lear and Edmund think that everything the world does should be for their benefit.  If it hurts other people to get what they want, so what? Also, they both are finding out who they really are.  Lear thinks he is this great king that everyone loves and respects, when really he is just an inadequate father and shaky ruler.  Edmund believes he should be the favorite son with all the materials of the Duke.  He finds out that backstabbing everyone and fighting only for himself to get what he wants ends up with him having no one to support him and nothing to show for it in the end.  And it seems both Edmund and the king pay for their faults, dying in the end.  

The big question this leaves for the reader is, "Where do I fall in this situation?  Am I more like Lear or more like Edmund?  Am I in the grey area in between, or am more extreme like them?"  It is interesting to think about it and be honest with yourself about where you would fall.

#LVE